Hey, That’s My Blog Post!
March 1, 2012 195 Comments
Twice in the last few weeks, I’ve encountered an exact copy of my blog post on another website. “We were not amused”, I can tell you!
In one case, a book review had been copied over to the website of the author of the book, with no reference to my blog. In the other case, I found one of my blog posts on a forum that dealt with a relevant issue.
But I like your post! I didn’t mean to steal it!
I’m flattered that people like my posts and want to show it to others. But copying the whole post is not the way to go. What could they have done instead:
Copy a few paragraphs with a link to my blog
There are blogs that seem to consist only out of the first few lines of other people’s blog posts with a link to read the rest of the post on the original blog. Examples are Pulplit Magazine and Review Gallery. While I don’t know if anyone ever looks at these sites (they don’t interest me), I have no problem with an extra link to my blog.
I have no objection against people taking a few paragraphs of my post, as long as there is a link to my blog.
Communicate, communicate!
Ask me whether you can use (some of) my post. I don’t bite! The author who copied my post to his website wasn’t a great communicator. When I emailed him to ask him to use only a small portion of my blog post with a link to my blog, I got back an email saying “Okay”. Seriously, that email was one word long! When I checked later whether he had changed his website, I found that he had taken off the whole post. Which was fine. I don’t benefit at all if my text is reproduced without a link to my website, so I had no interest in having my review on his website.
If he had emailed me before putting the (whole) post on his website, I may have even agreed to him doing so.
Think about what you’re doing. Think about copyright
Most people probably have nothing bad in mind. They see a blog post and find it interesting or useful for their own audience, they copy it, and that’s it. The person that copied my post to a forum did so because the forum dealt with a similar issue as my post. I wasn’t able to track the person down but as it was, a nice discussion resulted, including someone asking for the link to my blog (“Where did you get this from?”), so in the end, all was (reasonably) well.
Copyright is a difficult issue that I’m not going to go into here. My blogs have a copyright notice at the bottom, but they are not registered with a copyright agency. As I understood it (but have no link to prove it), blog posts are automatically copyrighted, whether you register or not. Anyway, a blog post copier should realise that a blog owner may take action when they encounter their post on a different website.
Have you found your posts on other people’s websites? What did you do? Any tips?
This blogpost was written as part of a Blogelina event
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About Judith
Leeswammes' Blog 
Hi Judith, I was informed last year by a fellow Blogger that another blog had a entire post of mine on their blog. After investigating it I found out the whole blog was made up of posts from blogs not their own (including giveaway results etc?). My blog has a copyrights notice at the top & bottom of the homepage & again on the about page & is registered with “my Copyright” (this is free & I receive an email copy of every post as my record), so I informed the individual gave them a week to sort it out & then informed Blogger which has a procedure for dealing with this and they removed all I reported, in total it had about 25 of my posts & hundreds other fellow Bloggers, who I also informed with link copies
PS. Check my homepage & click on the mycopyright if you want more info. Hope this is of use.
Thanks, that’s very useful. I will certainly do that.
Gary, wow, that’s quite a different story, obviously someone who misused other people’s blogs. In my case, luckily, it was quite innocent, if not nice. Glad you got it sorted, I really don’t know why people would just copy other people’s posts. What’s the fun in that?
Yes, I’ve had it happen a few times and no, I don’t believe the person who did it had nothing bad in mind.
Most of the ones I’ve found were my weekend birding posts and were stolen by bots or scrapers where they took the entire post… text, photos, links and posted it as their own. Some take a part of the post and link back. I couldn’t track down owners for those.
The worst one was another book blog. She copied my post word for word, called it her review, and offered a copy for giveaway. I was livid. I sent an email giving her 48 hours to take it down, got no response, so I told her I was sending a take down request to wordpress followed by an email to her book sponsors. The post disappeared within hours. Sadly she did not learn a thing from that. I continued to monitor the blog and last week found another 100% stolen post with a giveaway. This one belonged to another blogger who I then emailed to tell her about the stolen post and she got the offending blog shut down. A few days ago the blog resurfaced under a new name.
The people doing this are lazy. But to do it and tell a publisher that it’s your review and you want to offer a giveaway? That is pretty low.
Well, indeed, Leslie. I hadn’t heard that one yet (telling a publisher it’s your review). What a strange people there are in the world. Or am I just too naïve?
No, you’re not naïve. What that person did was naïve, to think they wouldn’t get caught passing off someone else’s work to a publisher as their own. I check every post she makes now and run it through google. I think it’s only a matter of time before she does it again!
I’ve since added mycopyright.com protection and I’ll probably add a disclaimer at the bottom of each post with a link back to myself, that way I may get a pingback if the entire post is scraped.
And really, if someone wants to use some of my content, as you already pointed out, just ask! I will even let people use my photos, as long as it’s for personal or non-profit use.
Leslie, a link back to yourself is a good idea!
I would love to be asked for my content to be used. But… asked! Not sneakily taken.
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Oh dear! I heard about this before, but luckily it’s never happened to me personally. Or maybe I just never noticed it happening, who knows? I remember, just a little while ago, that thing happened to a fellow blogger of a YA site (forgot which one, darn) and it turned out that “lady” did that on quite a regular basis and to make matters even worse she was not only a blogger but also an author … I mean HELLO!? Makes you wonder where she gets “her” novels from because she’s sure too lazy to write her own reviews.
And apropos reviews – I always send my reviews directly to the publishers pretty much the minute they go live on my blog, so basically the publisher will know who was the original creator aka the person who wrote it (in case someone should decide to steal it). Not as though I yet had to prove anything, but you know … bit of a safety net there.
Oh and I think you can somehow prevent copies being made from text on your blog or website, but I’m not sure how to do this. And I’m pretty sure that tech savvy people would find a way around it anyway. Then again, would lazy “bloggers” really bother if they weren’t able to copy text? They might just move on to the next blog.
Birgit, a writer did this? How stupid!!! Who would ever trust her again?
If you want to check whether people take your posts, you could take a line from your post and enter it in google (between quotes) and see what comes up. Hopefully only your own post!
wow….
I always have learned to ask or copy it with link to the website where I get the source from.
or i press like and reblog.
BookGoddess, yes, that’s how I was raised too! 😉
You always, always, name your sources, and online that means, you link to them.
I never had this happen to me as far as I know. But I would react the same as you did.
Uniflame, there isn’t much that you can do, or you have to go the “serious” legal way. Hopefully your posts won’t get copied. Although… they’re good enough, so keep your eyes open!
As I tell my students, plagiarism is plagiarism — and those rules don’t change after school. Without a link to the original material or at least a reference to the site or blogger, the individual has committed a copyright violation if they use your material. I don’t see any “fair use” argument in cutting and pasting your work.
I didn’t know about “mycopyright” but I am going to check it out. And just as a note, since I get good ideas about books from fellow bloggers all the time, I try to write down where I got an idea for a review so I can give the person credit — and provide a link to the original review. It doesn’t take much time, and people are usually very happy to be credited!
Col, I also try to remember to write down who gave me a book recommendation. I love to give credit to the person too.
How do you find out? I’d better start having a look at copyright and all that. I always link to a post if I mention it, but it had simply not occurred to me that someone might actually pinch a whole blog from someone else. Naive or what?!
Well, as it was, in the author’s case, there *was* an inadvertent link to my blog. The author had copied the whole thing *including the comments* and in the comments there was a link. WordPress pingback warned me about it. In the forum’s case, by the time I found out about it, someone had posted a link to my post, so, again, a pingback from WP. But I should be more vigilant and look for other cases where there is no pingback.
Last year there was a review that was made up entirely of other people’s reviews (including mine). The person had copy and pasted different sentences from multiple people’s reviews to make up their post, then changed them (very) slightly. Then she decided to send it to the publisher! I just keep thinking…what was she thinking? Goodreads was very nice and said they’d give her a warning and take it down (all the reviews that she stole from, and there were only like 5 reviews of this book to begin with were, were posted there so it was really easy for them to see the whole thing was plagerized ) but I didn’t bother contacting her. I just felt too weird. Instead I got myfreecopyright and stuck the graphic on my blog to deter people.
Glad it all worked out for you, Judith!
Erika, what a strange thing to do. Why not read the book and write your own review? If anything, it sounds much more fun and easier to do, too! Good for you to get the copyright sorted!
Can I ask how you discovered this? I have never thought to see if my content is posted somewhere… I’m sure it’s not but I’m curious. 🙂
I completely agree with everything you mentioned in your post.
Mari, see my comment above – I found out with pingbacks. But only because there happened to be some links in the post (by accident). I should do a google search for some parts of my posts, just to see if it happens more often, where I don’t get a pingback.
Sadly this happens all the time. I think sites like tumblr and pinterest reinforce the idea that it is OK to copy and spread things you like. Hopefully a few people will read your post and realise it is not OK to do this.
Jackie, I agree that pinterest and tumblr make it seem like something you can just do. Even if you copy a post WITH a link, that’s not good enough, you can’t just steal a whole post from someone.
Oh dear I keep reading about cases of plagerism and it seems to be a sad fact of blogging. I really cannot understand people that do this! I thought blogging was supposed to be a pleasure and a way of expressing ourselves in various ways, depending on the subject of our blogs. What pleasure can these people be getting I ask myself? I have no idea if my work, writing or photos are ever used unless someone asks me and then I usually very agreeable if I get a mention or link. I believe there are sites where you can check if your work has been copied although it sounds like another time consuming exercise. Time is short as it is, so I will just try not to worry about the possibilities. 😦
LindyLou, I agree, why do people do this? I spend quite a lot of time on my blog, and I don’t make any money off it, and the last thing I want is for people to just lazily use my content for themselves. But.. it happens!
Like you I write my blogs for pleasure not for profit and I would be very upset if I discovered someone had done this to me. It feels so personal despite the fact we are posting for the world!
Thanks very much for calling by Photography blog, I had no idea that I had signed in here with that one! I have recently split my blog and now have four! It is actually easier now, books, travel, photos and the original News From Italy with their own space!
LindyLou, four blogs is a lot to maintain. I can just about manage two but I do set myself a certain number of posts per week for each blog (sort of) and that’s sometimes a bit stressful.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. That’s really horrible. I never have anyone copy my content…but my blog got hack a number of timse. It really frustrated me when something like this happened to my blog… it’s really my heart and soul, it’s terrible that some lazy people just wanna steal it.
Actually, Tes, I think having your blog hacked is even worse. That is awful! I hope you are aware of what to do when it happens – to be honest, I have no idea myself!
BTW We made your Soy Sauce Eggs today (again) and it was lovely, as usual!
I have found my content on other sites. Depending on what it is, I will start taking the necessary steps to having it taken down. There is a ton of great information and the process necessary for having content removed on http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/.
Angie, thank’s for that link!
Angie,
Thanks for the great site! Full of info.
~Allie
I’m glad there exist something like ping-backs, because they warn you if people use your content. Today I had one, but it was positive with a linck back, so no problem!
By the way, nice subject! At this moment I’m writing some ‘about blogging’ posts myself and I find it interesting to think about all the aspects.
OMG! Does this really happen? This is my first week of blogging and I had no idea that people would do that, I’m sure too they didn’t mean anything bad by it, but come on, you shouldn’t just copy peoples work. On the upside as they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery!
Loulou, it seems to me rife in book blogging, at least. It’s easy to take someone’s book review and pretend it’s yours. I’m just not sure why you would want to.
In my case, people just didn’t think. I’m sure they had nothing bad in mind. Even so…
I’ve had this happen to me twice. The second time, they changed a few of the words so that it was in terrible English. Fortunately, that second time it happened on a social networking site, Gather.com, which has built-in reporting tools. I never got notified if anything was done about it, but I was at least able to report it.
Thanks for your comment on my book blog. Now I’m curious about what kind of books you review!
Sorry to hear this happened to you too, Erin!
I review contemporary fiction, some literary fiction, and also thrillers, chick-lit and memoirs (and anything else that comes my way). 🙂
Well, congrats that someone thought your post was great enough to copy! 😉
Just kidding…. I’ve always been confused on the issue of copyright and blogging.
However, I guess I’ve just had it ingrained into me deep enough in school through writing papers and such that if it is not your original idea – DO NOT COPY, especially without referencing the original source!!
I find it difficult sometimes in my area of blogging about food, because I just KNOW someone out there has made a dish very very similar or the same. That is why I do my research and always make changes to my recipes to make them my own or I reference the site where I got the idea!
It’s pretty simple if you think about it.
Nice post and happy blogging! I’ll be following your site as I loooooove to read and don’t currently follow any good book review blogs!
Thanks for visiting, Becky, and for becoming a follower.
In my earlier blogging days I wrote regular food posts too, but that has slacked off rather a lot lately! But I know the difficulties with those posts. It’s so easy to copy someone else’s recipe! But there is a difference between literally copying and using someone’s idea to make your own post. Linking is the best way to go about it.
I use a free copyright program that auto gives me a “footprint” whenever I make a blog post. I also use the RSS footer plugin to put in my own disclaimer and link back to my own site.. so far I haven’t had this problem yet.
Dominique, thanks for your comment. Good to read that you haven’t had a problem you. I hope your footprint and plugin have scared people off.
I’m with you – had I seen this I would have reacted the same way. I have not noticed this before, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. I am going to register Busy Mom on the Go so that if I do see it I have somewhere to report it to. Thanks for posting. There has been a lot of helpful information here.
Thanks for your comment, Jaime. Glad you found this post helpful.
I went thru this once!! a woman took MULTIPLE posts from me and then copied things straight from my source sites too!! I was soo mad reported her to google cause i was still with the free blogger service at the time.
then i exposed her on my blog, a couple of my bloggies blogs that she yoinked from AND informed her fb public of the matter.
Good for you, Eschelle! When someone takes multiple posts she obviously knows what she’s doing. It’s good that you took action!
Wow. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before. Naive, I guess. Why on earth would a writer risk this sort of notoriety? I’m completely flabbergasted.
Jennifer, I couldn’t think of a reason either. But some people in the comments suggested that maybe some people like to steal reviews rather than writing their own, for instance, when they’ve got a review copy from the publishers but they can’t be bothered. I know! Silly!
It’s happened to me and how–one of my posts was plagiarized by a leading magazine in India. They were utterly unethical and shameless about it–they refused to delete the post, and censored all comments about the plagiarism. So, while such things are often inadvertent, sometimes it’s deliberate; the offender assumes that even if they’re caught, nothing can/will be done about it. It’s pretty sickening!
That’s really bad Niranjana! I think usually a little nudge helps to make people remove their posts but this is outrageous. I can imagine you were very upset about it.
My reaction: It is totally rude for them to use your post and not link back. It’s one thing to share but another to ‘steal.’ Sadly there are people with no scruples. Certainly the author’s who use the reviews should include a link too. The comments to this post include some good resources.
Thanks for sharing this discussion.
Martha, indeed, the author was plain rude. He should have known better. I mean: author! Copyright! That should mean something to him.
Under Dutch copyright law (“de Auteurswet”) you don’t have to file or register or put in a copyright notice or do anything extra. Just the act of creating a blog post (or any other original product of the mind) makes you the owner of the text. Stealing your post is therefore not only incredibly rude, it is also an infringement of Dutch law. I am not sure about copyright laws in other countries but as far as I know, the basics are the same in most other law systems.
Thank you, Anna. I had heard this before but I wasn’t sure where.
I have not found any copies of my blog posts but it would be kind of shocking. I have mentioned posts from other blogs but always add a link back.
Easy2Save, it IS pretty shocking to find your own post somewhere else! Let’s hope it doesn’t happen to you. Linking is always good.
Yes, unfortunately I have found my posts in places other than at my own blog! This site has some very good information on the steps to find when your content has been stolen: http://www.loriswebs.com/stop-stolen-content.html
Thanks for the link, Starlene, that’s very useful. I hope your posts haven’t been stolen very often. It’s so disturbing to find it happen to you.
Not had that happen to me don’t think I write well enough lol. If they at least gave you credit that would be nice
Well, exactly, Jill – without giving credit it’s very brutal. With credit, it’s still not allowed but at least it’s a little better. I hope it doesn’t happen to you!
This has never happened to me, as far as I know of. I would be flattered at first. But I also understand you wanting credit for your hard work. That’s tough!
Yes, that’s the thing, D. Hard work and no credit? I get rather unhappy about things like that.
I have a disclaimer of sorts in my sidebar saying that posts can not be redistributed on other sites without written permission from the owner – but feel free to post a link. I’m not sure that it is legally binding, but I figured it would be worth a shot. I have found posts on the internet with links and a snippit or quote from my blog – which I haven’t really done much about. Fortunately, I’ve yet to have a complete post re-posted elsewhere except that one of my posts was pinned on Pinterest by someone other than me. Since pinterest seems to link back to the source, for now i’ve decided to not bother pursuing finding out who did it… but I think from now on any tutorial posts I’ll be pinning myself because it makes me feel better that I did it myself and someone didn’t “swipe” it from me.
Katie, that sounds like a good idea, to pin it yourself rather than wait for someone else to do it. I think it’s fine if they take a small portion of your post, but even on Pinterest they are not allowed to just take your full post.
In my wildest dreams I never would have thought of doing that to someone else’s blog! I guess it just proves this world is made up of all sorts of people!
It happens regularly Neveradullday! Unfortunately.
It’s sad that this happens so often – but the internet has made this so easy to do. I guess all we can do is protect our work as best we can with copyright and watermarked photos. You can also disable right click on your blog to stop people copy and pasting!
Jill, that’s true, I could disable the right-click – not sure I want to, though.
I have never seen my blogs anywhere else but I must say that I have never really searched for it either. I would definitely not like it!
Roxanne, no, it’s not nice. You could check with google (search for a particular sentence from one of your blog posts), but maybe you’d rather not know about it, even… 🙂
That’s the most awful thing to happen. Last year a group I know outed a blogger who entire blog consisted of plagiarized material. And he went on the offensive threatening them with dire consequences – the cheek of him!!
Corinne, that’s so ridiculous! I can’t understand why people bother! That was a very cheeky blogger. I hope he lost his blog.
I don’t think anyone has ever copied my posts. I do get tons of Spam comments, so maybe I should look closer at those. I don’t always ask in advance to share something, but I do always include a link, I think that’s ok, right!?!
Carolynn, you can take small pieces of text from people’s blogs with a link but if you take their whole post, you would have to ask, because of copyright.
I don’t know if you would find anything useful in the spam comments, in my case it was the pingbacks (which isn’t spam in wordpress) that alerted me.
“Okay”? “Okay”? That’s the reply you got?! You handled yourself so professionally, even posting a lovely blog post about this issue. Good for your self-control! I’m still hoping people read my blog:) but I would be upset if someone ripped it off without giving me credit.
Katy, yes, how silly is that? A one word reply. Well, I couldn’t get angry about it, I just let it go. 🙂
So sorry to hear about that. People can be so selfish. I think that’s about all you can say.
Indeed, Julie!
I have never had that happen to me, but I always get nervous about copyright issues. If I was ever going to reuse a paragraph of someones post I would ask and link back to it.
Katie, I think for a short piece you’re OK just taking it, but a link is essential and of course, it’s polite and friendly to tell the person that you’re using some of their post.
I have never encountered this but I know others who have and I do not think it is right. I have shared others information on my blog if it matches something I am sharing that day but I just post part of it and there link like you said and then I go to there blog to let them know so they can respond and if they ever ask me to take it down I would.
Glenda, I think you’re approaching it the right way. If everyone did it that way, there wouldn’t be any trouble. Thanks for commenting!
I think a lot of people believe that just because something is on the internet, it’s free game to take and use however they want. I would never copy someone else’s post, especially since it is important that my site has original content. I would be livid if someone took mine and used it without crediting me, but so far that hasn’t happened. Hmmm, I wonder if that should offend me? LOL!
Well, indeed, Nikki. It seems free for the taking, but it isn’t.
You may be pleased when you find your post on someone else’s website, but somehow, I don’t think you will be! Let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
Wow. What a mess. So sorry this happened to you.
Thanks, Tabitha. Not nice, but no big harm done, in my case.
I have never found my blog content on another site, but I think you took the right steps by contacting them and asking that a link be placed in reference to your blog. Some people don’t realize the seriousness of copyright protection.
Indeed, Kecia. Plus it’s not nice anyway to see others use your work without asking.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, so I’m glad you wrote about it. It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m sure it will. It must be an incredibly frustrating experience.
-Viva recently posted Homemade Pizza Dough
It’s definitely frustrating, Daily Citron.
I think one of the greatest things about blogging is the community. I’d never dream of quoting any part of someone else’s post w/o crediting and linking to them. I love sending traffic to worthy blogs!
I agree, Anjanette, I love the blogging community. I guess people who copy other people’s post an’t really be part of the community or they’d be find out really quickly. I guess?
I do mention others in my posts but never copy (parts of) their own post.
Oh, good grief. I’m sorry you had to deal with this, Judith. I suppose I will at some point, but I sincerely hope not. I don’t have time to hunt people down, so pingbacks are the way I would ever know, but I don’t usually have internal links in my reviews. The one good thing is that I post my reviews in so many places, and all on the same day, that it should be pretty easy for me to prove that it really is my review if it happens.
I do have internal links in most of my “how-to” posts, so if someone decides to “borrow” those, I should get pingbacks. *Sheesh* We shouldn’t even have to worry about this. What’s wrong with people?
Amanda, I think the tip of having internal links in reviews is a good one, but I also don’t normally have them.
its a mess- not nice. although karma amuses me when someone steals content and doesn’t change to their own affiliate links- they end up making the original author money!! LOL
Brett, that is funny indeed! It would make up for the theft a bit.
haven’t had that happen to me yet…but i can sympathize…
Thanks, Andi. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen to you. 🙂
Very frustrating to find this happen. It has happened a couple of times to me but I was able to get the blogger to remove the posts. One time a friend of mine linked to a scraped post, which was my content! That was the weirdest thing. Thankfully she was more than happy to give me credit for my own post. 🙂 I use a WordPress Plug-In called ©Feed (that’s a copyright symbol), the link to it is here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/copyfeed/
It allows me to place identifying information into the bottom of the post when it comes through a feed. I have seen some people’s content stolen and the scrapers don’t even realize the content at the bottom says it is stolen content! The nice thing about WordPress as you have probably found is you often get a pingback on this stolen content. Sorry this happened to you, and I hope it doesn’t happen again.
Mrs. Accountabillity, thanks for your comment. The plug-in sounds a great idea (when I have wordpress.org it’s definitely one I’ll use). Yes, the pingbacks are handy! 🙂
Well I hope it doesn’t happend again. When I do my recipes if they come from somewhere else, I link to where they come from. Now, here is a question for you. I have this recipe that is oh so good and cute, I emailed the person to ask could I use it and that I would link it back to her. She already admitted she got it from a cook book. She told me no. OK cool but, what if someone else had did it without asking permission what would have been the consequences. Just a thought. I hadn’t thought about it till now. Oh well, needless to say I don’t go to her blog too often now just because I feel she was being selfish and didn’t think it through. I don’t care who gets a recipe off my blog as long as they don’t use my personal words. That’s just me. Let me know if I’m wrong.
Doesn’t surprise me. Sorry it happened to you.
Thanks, Life Just Saying.
I can’t believe someone would do that! I feel guilty just for posting about something I know someone else posted about! But, now I’m going to check out the copyright thing. Thanks so much for sharing this info!
Hope it’s useful for you, Onesleepymom! Thanks for commenting.
I just started blogging so I need to learn about pingbacks. They look like a nice tool to have!
Emily, pingbacks are notifications that a blog post has been mentioned (linked to) on another website or blog. WordPress does them automatically, so you can see if someone mentioned your post.
It’s very unfortunate that this occurs- hope it doesn’t happen again!
Thanks, Mary.
I am sorry this happened to you. Hope you never has this happen again. I know I will always link back to others blogs if I use any of there post of info as that is just what is right.
Yes, a link back is very important, Shelly – plus using just a bit of the post, not the whole thing! 🙂
I would be so upset if that was me! I wouldn’t even know how to handle the situation!
Jeanette, writing an email to the blogger is the first step – ask them to remove it. If that doesn’t work… write to the blog host (wordpress, blogger, etc.). But it can be really hard to get them to take their post down, if they persist.
This has never happened to me but I would feel extremely angry and violated if it did. Once at work I put together a project wide memo, it had to be approved by the project director before being sent out. He removed my name and put down his. It made me furious!!
I’ve heard that that happens, too, Jamie, the bosses taking credit for good work from their employees. I’m sure you were furious!
I haven’t had this happen to me (that I know of). Anytime I want to share another blogger’s post I do exactly as you suggest. I quote a small portion to grab the reader’s attention with a link to read the entire post. Just common courtesy in my opinion!
Britni, I’m glad there are people, like you, who follow common courtesy rules. I mean, you didn’t even need my post, it’s pretty obvious really, what you should do. But not everyone seems to think so, unfortunately.
Wow! I am surprised about the stealing, but I have heard of it. Great tips!
It happens, Jaime. Hope it won’t happen to you. Thanks for stopping by.
My blog is new so I haven’t had this problem yet. I would really be upset if I found my content copied. Wow
It’s very disconcerting when it happens, Dianna. Good luck with your blog!
How awful. It’s public and fair game, but you would think people would have a little more respect for fellow bloggers knowing what goes into them. One word – karma.
It seems fair game, Deedra, but it’s not allowed. With copyright and all that you can get into trouble. But you’re right: respect for each other would make all the difference!
Great information for a new blogger! I will def look into the free copyright stuff. I hate that some people are too lazy to do their own work and take someones hard earned pieces with just a click.
Indeed, Krystle, it’s sad there are people that do it. As long as you cover yourself with a copyright notice, you’re fine (although I think even without you’re fine, but if you have the notice, at least people are alerted to the issue).
What a shame! I’ve honestly never thought about these issues in blogging before, and it’s really sad to have to. Thanks for sharing, although I’m sorry you found out about it the hard way. I’m going to have to research all of the copyright options.
Kristin, yes, it’s wise to have a look at it. Even just putting the copyright notice on your blog might be a deterrent.
Well it simply means that your did your post best. BUT, it’s still wrong to copy everything. And if ever he’ll copy even just three sentences he should credit the author of the original post. Maybe he didn’t learn that in school.
Absolutely, Yannie, you should always credit the person. And this was a published author!
I read from other blogger that Google doesn’t want the same article or somewhat duplicate post. They might consider your blog or the copier’s blog as spam blog. But I’m not quiet sure of this.
I would not be surprised at that, Marian. So if lots of my posts were taken, Google might think I‘m the copier! 😦
Well at least you are being talked about 🙂
But yes, all internet users need a lesson on copyright!
Maura, true, people seem to read my posts, which is nice! 🙂
Wow, that isn’t fun if someone steals what you do. Good that they like the material, bad that they decide to take it without permission.
Yes, that’s the problem, Becca. Asking me would be polite!
Wow, people really do this, huh! Well if they copy mine, all they will get is some really good recipes. I am sorry that people have to be dishonest. I dont think that way and just love the opportunity to share what I have always loved to do….. Thanks for the information. I will keep my eyes open. Have a great day.
Laurie, it also depends how much time you put in those recipes. If they were your grandma’s secret recipes or recipes that you generated from scratch, it wouldn’t be nice if someone else took the credit. Keep your eyes open!
I’m curious how you found out about these issues? Very sad world we live in 😦
Luckily, there were pingbacks that alerted me – in one case there was a link in the post, but only because it had copied over with the rest of the text.
Think about treating others and their work with respect. That’s the baseline. Don’t steal. I teach in a university, and we have just re-invigorated our work to teach students about plagiarism and how to avoid it.
Robin, I know how hard it is to keep students from plagiarising! People somehow just think they can get away with it.
Oh wow! I couldn’t imagine people “stealing” your writing, that’s terrible. I understand if you like something that you can reference if and put a link to it, but you have to give credit to it!
You got it, Dani! That’s what I would expect people to do, too.
I found three of my tutorials on another website. She even went so far as to crop out my watermarks on my photos. Her whole entire site consisted of copied posts. I emailed her asking her to remove my content. She finally responded and did so, but not without a few nasty comments sent my way. Apparently I had a lot of nerve.
She’s still doing it. I check on her site now and then and if I see something familiar, I write the original author and let them know.
can’t stand folks like that.
suzy
Suzy, that’s ridiculous. You are the one with the nerve? Hah! Well, it’s good that you keep a close eye on her. I think you could have her blocked if she is on a blogging platform (blogger or wordpress, for instance).
Heard of that happening. Read a blog post warning about people copying and she gave the same tip I’ll pass on to you all. Go to https://support.google.com/alerts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175925&topic=28415&ctx=topic and setup an alert for a couple of sentences of each of your posts about half way down. Have Google automatically send alerts to your email so you don’t have to worry about checking every now and then. I have an alert on my blog name right now but will be adding my posts to it.
Thanks, Clarinda, that’s a great tip. I was thinking of just checking every now and then but if Google can do it for me, that’s much better!
That is so annoying! I had it happen recently, and it feels like theft. We work really hard for quality posts, and it is not ok for someone to copy/paste our efforts. Ok, done with the soapbox. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comment, Johnnie. I so agree, it does feel like theft.
It always surprises me when I hear of this happening. I have yet to encounter it (hmm, maybe my blog posts aren’t all that great, lol). I for one, always link back to another blog if I used any of their material, photos included!
Well, of course you do, Adelina. It’s the way to do it! 😉
I even feel bad copying part of someone’s blog without asking. I couldn’t imagine copying a whole post. How did you find out? In a way it is an honor. On the other hand it is just flat out rude. I don’t think I’ve been blogging long enough for someone to copy my posts. Then again, I’ve never checked.
It’s nice they like the post enough to copy it, but it’s rude and illegal and a real shock when you see your post somewhere else, See You In The Garden. Luckily there were some (slightly) hidden links in one post, and the other post, someone asked where they had got it from and then my link came up – the links were then tracked back by WordPress.
Wow . . . I wouldn’t even know if some stole my work. Glad you found it and were able to get it rectified. Too bad the incident occurred in the first place. Sorry the communicate was so abrupt. The least that should have been said was “sorry.”
Tracy, thanks for your comment. Yes, the communication (with a writer) was hopeless. Well, I laughed and learned. 🙂
I agree, a credit to the original source is a must. I knew a blogger that would post other’s recipe photos with her recipe. Um….so not cool! She didn’t understand how wrong that was.
Wendy
Around My Family Table
Wendy, indeed, some people just don’t realise they shouldn’t do it. But for most of us, people with a brain, we know what’s fair (and polite!).
WOW I cannot even imagine seeing one of my blog posts someplace else without a link. At least with a link you are giving the correct person credit…..scary! I think so many people feel it is too difficult to ask for anything……it is so sad.
That’s right, Kerry. An email is easy enough to write, but just taking the text is simpler still!
Wow, that’s crazy! It is hard for me to believe that there are people out there like that, so inconsiderate! I luckily haven’t had that problem yet but will just be starting to do reviews on products soon so hopefully it won’t happen to me in the future! I’m sorry you are dealing with that but hopefully it won’t hinder your work or great writing! Thanks for sharing openly about it and hope it gets resolved soon and won’t happen again to you!
Thanks, Kathy. It’s disconcerting if you have spend time writing your blog post (e.g., a review) and then someone just takes it and uses it on their own blog without ever using the product/reading the book etc.
Wow! Makes you wonder how many are out there that you don’t even know about. I always simply direct folks to the blog of someone. Kinda frustrating to know this thing happens!
It is, Jamie. I’m going to set up Google alerts to keep an eye on it.
My latest problem is finding my pictures on other people’s sites. I am learning to watermark my pictures.
🙂
Lisa
Yes, that helps, I’m sure, Lisa. With blog posts, that is a bit more difficult. But it’s easier to find back copied blog posts than pictures.
Very good points for all bloggers to consider. It is okay to quote someone else (giving proper credit) but it is NOT okay to reproduce anything as though it is your own. Thank you for pointing this out; new bloggers especially may not be aware.
He says, She says, it’s so easy to take someone’s post. I’m sure not everyone does this out of malice but it’s worth pointing it out every now and then.
Hi Lees wanted to stop by and thank you for visiting Oh! My Heartsie I appreciate the time it takes. I have not heard so many having problems with others taking whole bog posts. I love to feature other blogs with a mention of their blog and adding the banner, but not so much the content of posts, unless it were a guest post, then it is totally theirs. Hope to see you again soon, thanks, Karren
Karren, I’m sure other bloggers love to be featured! It’s the secret stealing of content that none of us like. 😉
I have not had this happen to me. But I hear about it so often that I just wonder if it is just a matter of time. 😦
I have seen tidbits with a link back to my post. I get notified via trackback. I don’t like that they are doing that but at least they aren’t claiming the content as their own.
~Allie
Allie, it depends. I don’t mind if people refer to my post with a link, in fact, I love it! But not my whole post on their blog!
That is really bad. I click the share button on Facebook so that way it send them to the original website when they click on the link. But too just copy your post and not even give you credit is ridiculous. Bloggers work hard to get information and interesting information to their readers. They could have at least apologized and then at least put a link to your site on the post. Hopefully it wont happen again.
Thanks, April. I’m going to be a bit more alert as well. It’s my hard work so I don’t want people to just use it as they like.
That’s awful – I would be infuriated! People need to learn to think before they do such things. Stealing is never ok!
Indeed, Dawn! Thanks for your comment.
My question is how do you even come across these people that do that? Do you have a program that searches for it? I totally get how you feel. I try to always give credit where credit is due, which I link to lots of other blogs often.
Julie, there happened to be a link in the post (that they hadn’t taken out) so although it wasn’t obvious, there was a pingback to my blog and that’s how I saw it.
Wow. That is crazy. I have never had anyone take information from my blog and post it as their own before, that I know of. Another blogger wrote a post about pictures of her daughter being taken and posted at a site in Brazil. Creepy! I always put watermarks on my pics now that are not as easily cropped out.
Creepy it is, LaVonne. The watermark should help.
Wow, how annoying is that? I can’t believe people just taking other people’s work and passing it off as their own.
It happens, Stacie. It’s online burglary!
So true! I love it when people actually email me FIRST to get permission and to see how I would prefer them to do it.
Yes, it’s great when they email in advance, HnB4life. I’m happy to share, but only when asked first.
That copyright program that someone mentioned sounds like a good idea. I was none too happy when I saw my post on a spammy site one day!
Sorry to hear that happened to you Katrina! Yes, it’s worth looking into that copyright program.
Very interesting post about copyright. From what I understand about copyright, you are correct that things are automatically copyrighted once published. The benefit to registering your work with the copyright office is that it is easier to talk someone to court for copyright infringement (this is a very simplistic explanation – I am not a lawyer).
Also, how do you find out where your blog posts are copied?
Thimble, thanks for the comfirmation about copyright.
I found out because there happened to be a link in one of the posts (a bit hidden) and the other post, someone of the forum asked for a link to my blog. Then, these links were “ppingbacked” by my wordpress account, i.e., I got a notification that my posts had been linked there. Of course, that was just luck, and I’m planning to use Google Alerts (see link in one of the other comments) so it will alert me if any other blog posts are stolen.
it happens a lot. i have been doing this since 2007 and our content is spread daily, regularly by rss scrapers. it is a snowball – no way to stop or prevent it really. frustrating.
That’s very frustrating, Jenivieve. I think you could try and get them blocked, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the hassle.
As far as I’m aware I’ve never had someone copy my blog word for word, but I whole heatedly agree with you! I don’t mind when they ask to use my blog, as long as they don’t use the ENTIRE post and as long as I have a link back to my blog to give credit.
As for photos I use, I did this a while I was running a fashion boutique because too many people would steal your photo and pass it off as their own, but I always add watermarks to my photos. I discovered recently that I need to continue to do this with my blog photos, because all too often photos are used without giving credit to the source. So I always include a watermark on my photo, in a spot where they can’t crop it out without making a mess of the photo.
Photos is even more of a problem, Amber, as you can’t search for them with text search. Watermarking helps a bit. They can still take it, but it’s clear where it comes from. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen too often.
wow! scantless! i would be pissed! but you handled it well. as a food blogger, i feel like i copy peoples ideas when taking pics and writing stories. but all are my originals anyways. also, there is something to be said about plagerism. why can’t people just take the ideas of others and improve? kind of like mac and apple, mcdonalds and burger king. all copy cats all make millions just branded and worded differently. when i read others posts and love what they say, i re word the ideas to make them better and my own…..
Sarah, thanks for your comment. I think linking to other people’s blogs is important, even when you change their ideas into your own words. Blatantly copying is of course a total no-no, as you say.